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Tag Archives | Happy Mondays

I’m all about connections. What really turns me on is when two previously separate areas of interest suddenly collide head on thanks to the discovery of a new piece of information. The connections are already there, it’s just that we’re blind to them much of the time, so when John Higgs, the author of ‘The KLF: Chaos, Magic And The Band Who Burned A Million Pounds’, does the detective work and pieces of the jigsaw fall together in a way that reveals a different picture to what we may previously have envisaged, that’s a deeply nourishing feast for me.

Been meaning to get this amended article onto the blog. It’s something I originally wrote back in 2003 for Grandslam magazine as a feature revolving around the release of 2 No Wave compilations at the time, one on the re-activated ZE label, the other on Soul Jazz. The piece was originally published under the title ‘When Punk Met Funk’.

On 20th September, the first in a series of 5 Super Weird Happenings takes place in Manchester at Gorilla on Whitworth Street, promoted via my multi-media outlet Super Weird Substance in conjunction with El Diablo’s Social Club who’ve been running their influential club nights in the city for many a moon.

Sometimes you share in an extra-special gathering that, even just a few days later, leaves you wondering ‘did that really happen?’ Such was the case with the Super Weird Substance Record Store Day event that was held at Dry Bar in Manchester last Saturday.

Got a big Easter weekend coming up soon that kicks off at Sankey’s in Manchester with the Haçienda Good Friday event, and rounds off on Easter Sunday with the Loft Studios All-Dayer in London, where I’ll be appearing alongside former New York Studio 54 resident, Kenny Carpenter. It’ll be my 3rd time at Loft Studios – it’s one of my favourite London venues, and was the location of my 8 hour ‘A Night With…’ session in 2012, as well as the memorable hook-up with Danny Krivit last year. More info here:http://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?563538

It’s my 200th blog post, so, in contrast to my 100th post, which was about the club where, as I’ve previously stated, ‘I experienced my greatest DJ highs’, Legend in Manchester, this time I wanted to to share something that symbolises a time when the garden wasn’t so rosy, and I was struggling with life, both externally and internally. ‘The Monastic Mix’, from 1996, was a much needed catharsis for me, both an ending and a fresh starting point – it was the last mix I ever tape edited, putting it together on my original Revox B77 reel-to-reel, which I’d bought 14 years earlier, back in 1982, in order to record / edit my Piccadilly Radio mixes in my home DJ studio.

Back in March I did a gig with a difference at the Queen Of Hoxton in London, promoted by Cosmic Boogie and Big In Japan. Apart from being booked to play an as per normal DJ slot, a few hours beforehand I’d been invited to present a ‘Soundtrack Set’, where I added a visual aspect to the music of my choice. This took place in a huge tepee on the roof, and the idea certainly caught the imagination with tickets selling out in advance. This was the second Soundtrack Set, the previous one hosted by the illustrious JD Twitch (from Glasgow’s Optimo) who’d played his own selection of music to accompany the screening of the visually stunning ‘Baraka – A World Beyond Words’ (1992), which took its cue from 1982’s eco-conscious cult-classic ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ and its sequel ‘Powaqqatsi’ (1988), its epic scale providing a broad canvas onto which Twitch would re-imagine its score.

One of the world’s most celebrated clubs, The Haçienda in Manchester, opened 30 years ago today, on Friday May 21st 1982. In June 2007, a little after the 25th anniversary, the inimitable Manchester-based writer / musician, John Robb, author of books including ‘The North Will Rise Again: Manchester Music City 1976-1996’ (2009), ‘The Stone Roses And The Resurrection Of British Pop’ (1996) and ‘Punk Rock: An Oral History’ (2006), did a short interview with me about the club’s legacy:

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Being a DJ

I’m a DJ from Merseyside. I started out in 1975, but stopped for almost 20 years, between 1984 and the end of 2003, at which point I started again.

One night during the period I wasn’t deejaying, turning off my mind, relaxing, and floating downstream I had what might be termed a moment of clarity. Paradoxically, although I was no longer a DJ in the literal sense I suddenly became aware that I’d never actually stopped being a DJ, for even if I was in a room with just one person I couldn’t help but ask them ‘have you heard this?’, and not only ‘heard’, but ‘have you seen this / read this?’, for it goes beyond music. Already taken somewhat aback by this nugget of self-discovery, I realised, in true eureka style, that this all pre-dates my being a DJ and goes back as far as I can remember – I’ve always had an inherent need to share, it’s absolutely central to my nature. This was quite a revelation.

So it’s no wonder that I became a Disc Jockey, for once I fell in love with those circular pieces of magical plastic during my formative years, it wasn’t a matter of choosing this as a path, the path pretty much chose me.

I don’t intend this to be a DJ blog as such, but more a blog by someone who happens to be a DJ – a place where personal emphasis takes precedence over professional, although, as I’ve already explained, the two aspects are, of course, inescapably entwined.